Five Things - Personal shifts
I've realized that I've done three articles in a row that have all been pretty heavy. So, let's take a pause from that and hopefully be a little lighter. It's time for another installment of Five Things. As I've transitioned, some of my interests have evolved. With new likes and things that hold my attention much less than they used to. So this week's article is about personal shifts that I've noticed since beginning my transition.
1) The first one is obvious, it's this Substack site. Writing is really a new talent that has developed forĀ me since transitioning. I briefly attempted a blog about a decade ago and it was abandoned pretty quickly because I had a lot of trouble writing prose. Writing really used to be something I could do if I applied enough brute force, but it always seemed to take a lot more effort for me than for others.
My first career was producing national radio. While I wasn't on air, you absolutely have to be in the moment in that career, as two seconds of silence can be an eternity. I was always someone who talked to think, meaning that I'd talk a stream of consciousness into order to get my thoughts out. Once I got over the speech impediment of my youth, I would be really comfortable talking in front of large groups. Later, when I went into a corporate job I would be comfortable presenting in front of groups of people. I would not write out what I was going to say. Instead, I'd have a couple of bullet points and I'd hit the highlights. I did really well in front of customers, especially if I had a white board. I used to joke that I could get up in front of a room full of people and draw a triangle and customers would think I really knew what I was talking about in ways that a slide show just could not accomplish. I've been very good in front of people for a long time.
But writing extended thought was always really challenging. In my first management job, we worked on bids to win state contracts. I found out quickly that I was a much better editor than writer on these bids. Later, I needed to write technical deliverables for customers and they were always a struggle for me to get done. Additionally, all through my management career I've needed to write performance reviews. These were especially challenging, as they usually start out with some type of a self-assessment. For years, these were triggering for me and I didn't understand why until this year. Imagine being queer but not coming out on some level because you have fears over others putting you into a box. At the same time, you had to write performance reviews after reading someone's self-assessment. You'd need to give them feedback which seems to contradict their self-assessment at times. I had to tell people who they were in their work life even though I couldn't look at who I was.
About two months after coming out, as I'm getting thoughts down about my transition, I realized that I was thinking clearly and writing no longer required the same type of brute force as I previously needed. Not only that, but I was actually enjoying writing. I didn't need to talk to think, I could just start processing my thoughts and writing them down. Things flowed naturally. I think a lot of this was working through things in therapy so that I wasn't running into hidden blocks when I tried to write. It's truly a joy to be able to write clearly after having challenges for so long.
2) How about something where my interest has waned? I used to play poker a lot. I really enjoyed Texas Hold 'em. There is a casino with a poker room not too far from me, and I used to play poker two to five times a month. I mainly played low stakes cash games. Poker involved a lot of things that I like with math, strategy and gambling.
So, why did I enjoy it? I was able to put the numbness that I felt in the before times to good use and bullshit people. As long as I was calm and collected, people were not going to get a read on me from how I interacted. If I was in a significant hand and I put my opponent into a position where they have to make a tough decision (which is a key component to playing good poker) I'd just stare blankly at the chips in the main pot no matter if I had a bluff, an absolute monster of a hand, or something in between.
I enjoyed playing cash games much more than tournaments. In a tournament, you usually need a mix of good play and luck against all players to go deep and be profitable. In a cash game, you just needed to spot the one or two players at your table where you can clean them out and take their money. I was good at reading people to know where they were at, and this informed my ability to take prudent risks.
I also absolutely understood what's known as your table image. Your table image is how you are perceived by your opponents. If I was playing at a table with a lot of people I hadn't played with, I would often be quite loose and aggressive for the first few hands. This would either win me pots or it would allow me an opportunity to show people how loose I was playing. By doing this, and betting my hands very similarly almost every time, people would run into me when I had a big hand and I'd get paid off.
I've played poker exactly once since starting HRT nine months ago and that was at the three week mark and before I transitioned. I told the one openly queer dealer that I was transitioning (he exclaimed "crack that egg!"). I may go back and play again at some point, but I honestly don't really miss it. Before, poker was a game about suppressing your emotions and I did that on a daily basis when I was the old me. Now, I have absolutely no desire to suppress my emotions. The emotions that I feel are an absolute gift. This depth and breadth of emotions is how I'm supposed to experience life and is a key component to my happiness. Why on earth would I want to voluntarily suppress them.
It may be fun to go at some point and see how people interact with me - I'm sure it will be very different. Will people play me as they used to, how they typically play against women, or none of the above? I'm not ready today, but it may be something I'll want to do again in the future. We will see.
An aside - this ability to read people, and being very aware of how I am being read at the poker table, honed over 10,000 or more hands, has really come in handy since transitioning. I used to get a read on where people were at in poker, but now I get a read on how people are with my transition almost immediately. I know where people are almost immediately. Are they an ally? Can I help them be more vocal? Who is not worth my investment of time?
3) For a long time, my favorite season was summer. In the Chicago area, it's the season with the most nice days. I loved long period of daylight, my kids being off from school, and the ability to do things that are fun. I'm a huge roller coaster enthusiast and summer is the time for roller coasters and theme parks. I used a majority of my vacation every summer. It was easily my favorite season.
Then I transitioned and I just don't love summer the way I used to. In this first summer, there's a lot to not like. Let's start with summer makeup. I take my time and get my makeup look right. Then I'm outside on a warm day. My sweat runs and invariably it runs into my eyes. I already have challenging allergies for my eyes, then I add sweat that stings them and demands attention to clean the area up. But there is no attention that I can give to my eyes without risking wrecking my makeup. So then I need to go much lighter on my makeup. This greatly increases my chances of being read and can put me on edge especially if I'm by myself. I donāt care if people know that I'm trans, but I absolutely care if it changes my ability to live safely. Unfortunately, the Venn diagram with these two circles and there's a massive overlap. Unless I'm coming off a large volume electrolysis session, I absolutely need foundation to ensure you don't see the facial hair growth coming in.Ā Summer makeup options stink especially for someone who wants the security of full coverage.
But it's not just makeup. Getting confronted with going to a swimming pool is a mind job. I have to figure out what needs to be shaved, where bulges will show, and is my swim dress going to fly up. There is so much for summer that just doesn't apply to other seasons. It takes more to get me hot now, but once I am hot it's so much worse than it used to be. Hairstyles are different. My hair is up so much more in the summer and I really like when my hair is down. But hair down on an 82 degree day with seventy-five percent humidity just stinks and I'm overheated. I so like how dry my body is most of the year and being sweaty and sticky in summer does not go with this body. Underarm sweat is nothing new, but breast sweat stinks.Ā Thigh sweat in a skirt make my legs feel lubricated and is a mind job. The clothes are different and I have to experiment with my style anew. If it's humid, it really screws with my hair cooperating and that's another randomizer for how long it will take me to get ready and look presentable.
Summer is not all bad though. Getting a tan while wearing a tank top with spaghetti straps, thus giving me a gender affirming suntan is pretty good.Ā Wearing my pair of open toed sandals with a 3' heel is also pretty fun. And above the knee pleated skirts make any outfit look divine. When I nail my look, it can be really affirming. There's just a lot more variables in play during the summer.
So, what's my favorite season now? Fall and it's not close. The ability to be all cozy and feel warm with crisp air around you is amazing. I break out my sweater dresses, with or without leggings depending on the temperature. Or I'll do tights instead of leggings and a nice pair of heels. Then I'll throw on my favorite knee length cardigan. There is so much with makeup that has the potential to go wrong, but I really like being able to have a consistent, polished look that won't be messed up with sweat and fall is perfect forĀ that. That fall makeup look I have down, and it's good through winter and into spring too. I can do my go to makeup look and be ready in 20-25 minutes and it almost always looks good. People may or may not read me, but I'm consistently getting she/her when I'm out and about and that's really affirming. Fall is perfect for sipping coffee or hot apple cider. I keep a blanket nearby if I want to be even warmer and a space heater is near my desk. Having the dog next to me or in the bed for extra warmth is the best in fall and winter. Maybe we'll get a fire going in the back yard and my wife and I will just sit out there and we can be. Fall is a vibe. I did not get fall in the before times but I absolutely love it now.
4) The next area is not so fun. There is an element of transitioning that means that I'm not as independent as I was before. I have no idea how different my experience is from that of most women, as I can only imagine how a woman feels when she's getting cat called. There are two recent experiences that highlight this for me.
I June, there was an Out in Tech event in downtown Chicago. I work from my downtown office that day, and a couple of us walk over to the event. I'm in the 3" sandals that I mentioned above and it's close to a mile long walk. The event is great, but I'm standing most of the two hours that I'm there. People slowly leave, and it's time to walk back to my car, which is near my company's office. I'm walking alone through the loop at 7:15 on a June weeknight, and a car comes to a very slow crawl. The driver rolls down his window, sticks his arm out at full extension, points at me and laughs at the top of his lungs. I really have no choice in what to do here - keep walking and hope he doesn't get out of his car. All I can think of is that I don't want my name read on November 20th this year. I'm 5'11" and I'm sure my feet are feeling it from walking the two miles and being on my feet another two hours at the event. Of course I'm being clocked. When I think back to the event, there was a steady stream of people that wanted to talk to me, so I know I'm getting read at the event too (again, this is fine, because I'm proud to be trans). Holy hell was this a nerve wracking experience.
Here's another incident, this time from May. I'm on a roller coaster trip with my nephew. Today's a driving day, and we are driving to Washington DC from northern Ohio. We're going through the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. I'm doing seventy seven miles an hour with a speed limit of seventy miles an hour. I pass a state trooper and the officer pulls out. That's really weird because typically you only get a ticket for going ten or more miles an hour over on an interstate. Sure enough the officer pulls us over. He gets out and comes up to the passenger side of the car, asking for license, registration, and proof of insurance. I have my license handy, in the name of Veronica. I need to look for the other two items because it's been ages since I've been in this situation. He asks if I know why he pulled me over and I say I don't. He tells me that I was going twelve miles an hour over the limit. I know how fast I was going, and before I can stop myself I tell him that I looked at the speedometer and I was going seventy-seven. The officer goes back to his car and we start looking around. We find the registration - the license plate sticker was in the glove compartment and the sticker was just never applied to the plate, but the car is still registered. I pull my insurance card up on my phone. I also keep a certified copy of my court order that changed my name with me in the event that there are any problems, and I'm glad I have it here and ready to go in the event there is an issue. The officer is taking what seems like forever in his car. Finally he gets out and comes up to the car, again on the passenger side. He asks if I have my registration and insurance and I show them to him, via my nephew who is sitting in that seat. He proceeds to tell me that he's going to give me a warning ticket. He hands the ticket in to me and tells me to slow down. So, it would seem that this was fortunate. Then I look at the ticket and see that he didn't make the ticket out in my name, Veronica. He made it out to my deadname. This was despite giving him my license in my legal name of Veronica. My license shows that my sex is female. It doesn't make any sense that he would have written the ticket in this way. When the sex was updated on my license, that also changed yr Driver's License number, as Illinois driver's license numbers have gender coding in their number*.Ā So if he puts in my name or my driver's license number, it will only pull up the identity of Veronica as it should not be connected to the driver's license number I had in the before times. Then the light went off as to why I got a warning. If he writes me an actual ticket, it would have to be in the name Veronica or it would be thrown out, as deadname didn't exist any more. He'd get a mark against him for writing a ticket to someone who doesn't exist. But if it's a warning ticket, he can write the ticket however he wants as no one is going to see it in court. But did he put my deadname on Veronica's driver's license number, so that if someone pulls me over I'll be outed? I went to such great lengths to keep prevent any records from tying my legal name to my deadname, and I'm now concerned that this officer just did exactly that. I'm also left wondering if this would have been worse if I'm not sitting next to my 25 year old cis/het white nephew. There is so much with this one.
I used to drive so much by myself before I transitioned. I've taken multiple extended road trips every year since 2021 and I've seen thirty-nine states in that time. I've been to fourteen of those states driving by myself. But after this event in Pennsylvania, I just don't feel comfortable driving out of state by myself. If I'm in a city at night, I'm asking someone to walk me to my car. What part of this is because I'm a woman and what part is because I'm trans? I can't separate the two as I experience them together. But it's a lot to deal with. I obviously would not roll back any part of my transition, but I do long to feel safe doing things by myself like I felt before. Sadly I don't think that's in the cards.
5) For the last thing, I can get really excited talking about my transition. There are all these experiences that I'm having and I am having different emotions with them. So of course I talk to my wife about this. It turns out that while she loves me, she might not always want to hear about my seventeenth feminine thought in the last two hours. In the before times, if I was talking about something like my fantasy football team, it would not be a personal affront to me. But how do we do this when I'm talking about something that's so important like the core of my identity? We realized that we needed a way out so that she could exit a conversation with no issue and so that she doesn't take in my random thoughts. We needed something like a code word. When I brought this concept up to her, I had a code word pop into my head that I used as a placeholder until we decided on what we wanted the code word to be. The code word is "pimento". Of course the code word became the actual word. So now she says pimento to me, and that's when it's time to stop this line of discussion and move along, or find someone else to talk about my feminine delights with.
So if you see my wife and I in public and she says pimento, now you'll know that this means that it's time for me to talk about something other than my transition.
*My mother, who was a computer nerd figured out most of the code for the Illinois Driver's license number back in the 70s. The list five digits are the final two digits of your birth year, then a three digit code for your birth date. Numbers 1 to 372 are for males under the code that assumes every month has thirty-one days so a birthday of November 1, 1970 would have 70311 as the final five digits of a driver's license number. Women use numbers 601 to 972. My final three digits increased by 600 when I changed the gender marker on my license.